By Deborah Castellano Lubov
The Jubilee of Artists and the World of Culture is set to take place in the Vatican from Feb 15-18 2025.
A press conference presenting the event took place on Wednesday morning in the Holy See Press Office.
Among the speakers were Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education; Italian Senator Lucia Borgonzoni, under-secretary of State at the Ministry of Culture; Pres. Lina Di Domenico, acting head of the Department of Prison Administration of the Ministry of Justice of the Italian Republic.
Representing the Vatican, Barbara Jatta, director of the Vatican Museums, offered a discourse, along with Cristiana Perrella, curator of the “Conciliazione 5” Space for the Holy Year 2025, and Raffaella Perna, curator of the exhibition “Global Visual Poetry: transnational trajectories in Visual Poetry.”
The first major event of this special Jubilee will be the opportunity for artists and those who are active in the world of culture to participate in a General Jubilee Audience, with Pope Francis, on Saturday morning.
Sharing Hope – Horizons of Cultural Heritage
Later that day, the Dicastery for Culture and Education, in collaboration with the Vatican Museum, will jointly organize an international meeting on the theme “Sharing Hope—Horizons of Cultural Heritage.”
The encounter aims to provide a space for museum directors and operators in the art and academic world and cultural institutions to reflect on the current possibilities, methods and languages for the promotion and transmission of the religious and artistic heritage.
At the end of the meeting, which will be attended by international speakers, an educational manifesto on the transmission of the cultural code of religions will be signed.
That evening there will be the opening of the Window Gallery “Conciliazione 5,” located in Via della Conciliazione, and a presentation of the project of Yan Pei-Ming, in cooperation with the Italian Department of Penitentiary Administration and the Community of the Regina Coeli Prison.
On Saturday, Cardinal Mendonca said, the Pope will preside over the Eucharistic celebration in St. Peter’s Basilica in the morning, and later on in the day, the artists will undertake a pilgrimage through the Holy Door of the Basilica.
Visit to Cinecittà
On Monday morning, for the first time, a Pontiff will pay a visit to Rome’s iconic Cinecittà film studios. During his visit, Pope Francis will meet visit a group of artists and protagonists of the world of culture in cooperation with the Italian Ministry of Culture and Cinecittà.
Later that afternoon, there will be a meeting of the Dicastery for Culture and Education with representatives of Catholic cultural centres and ecclesial bodies dedicated to culture at the Dicastery offices.
Transnational Trajectories
Finally, on Tuesday afternoon, there will be the opening of the exhibition “Global Visual Poetry: Transnational Trajectories in Visual Poetry,” curated by Raffaella Perna, at the premises of the Dicastery located in Piazza Pio XII, 3.
The exhibition is designed to highlight the innovative and topical contribution of the 20th-century art of visual poetry.
Dr Jatta: Transmitting patrimony of art and religious values
Vatican News spoke to the Director of the Vatican Museums, Barbara Jatta, about the event’s significance:
“There is no doubt how important it is not only to have a jubilee for artists, but also for all the people that are in the art world in a wide sense, including curators, directors, professors in art history, people like, like myself, and many others that we have invited for the 15th of February in the Vatican Museums.”
She expressed their constant commitment and daily work committed to transmitting this patrimony, which she noted, is “a patrimony of research and art,” but also “a patrimony of religious values.”
“And we don’t want,” she underscored, “that the present and future generations lose those religious values.”
With the efforts of the upcoming Jubilee of Artists, and in particular, an upcoming statement that will produced together in the coming days, Jatta said, the participants will examine this “while looking back to our tradition, in order to not forget where we come from” but also “looking at the present, and where we are going in the future.”
Barbara Jatta concluded by expressing her hope that this endeavour may have the power to “transmit hope, peace and dialogue.” – Vatican News
